Indian President Draupadi Murmu’s visit to Sabarimala encountered a minor scare. The wheels of a helicopter flying her to Kerala got stuck in a depression in the newly concreted helipad at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium at Pramadam when it landed on Wednesday morning, PTI reported.
Visuals on TV channels showed several policemen and fire force personnel pushing the helicopter’s wheels out of the small depressions created when it landed on the concrete.
A senior police officer of the district said that the stadium was chosen as the landing location for the helicopter at the last moment, and therefore, the helipad was constructed there late on Tuesday.
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President Murmu left for Pamba by road. Her special convoy reached around 11am IST, after which she offered prayers at the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala.
She washed her feet in the Pampa river and then offered prayers at the nearby temples, including the Lord Ganapathy shrine.
Thereafter, the melshanthi of the Ganapathy temple, Vishnu Namboothiri, filled the sacred bundle, or ‘irumudikkettu’ of Murmu, who was dressed in a black saree, at the ‘Kettunira Mandapam’.
